A typical disc drive includes a rigid housing having a basedeck and top cover that encloses a variety of components. The components include one or more discs having data surfaces that are coated with a magnetizable medium for storage of digital information in a plurality of circular, concentric data tracks. The discs are mounted on a spindle motor that causes the discs to spin and the data surfaces of the discs to pass under respective aerodynamic bearing disc head sliders. The sliders carry transducers, which write information to and read information from the data surfaces of the discs.
The components also include an actuator mechanism that moves the sliders across the data surfaces of the discs. The actuator mechanism includes a motor, such as a voice coil motor (VCM), a track accessing arm and suspensions that support the sliders. The motor is operated so as to move the actuator mechanism about an actuator pivot center such that the sliders move from track-to-track across the data surface of a disc.
Often, a printed circuit board (PCB) is mounted directly to a surface of the disc drive and supports a plurality of printed circuit board components. The plurality of printed circuit board components are configured to couple to components enclosed in the disc drive housing for operation. For example, the spindle motor housed in the disc drive is connected to components on the PCB.
Recently there has been an increase in the production of smaller and lighter weight disc drives in the disc drive industry. To design small form factor disc drives, the size of the PCB must also decrease. One option for designing smaller sized PCBs is to shrink the size of the components that are mounted to the board. However, many PCB components need to have large physical sizes to meet operational standards for components housed in the disc drive and are therefore difficult or impossible to shrink. Attempting to shrink PCB components will sacrifice operative standards. Another option for designing smaller sized PCBs is to reduce the amount of space reserved for the spindle motor. Decreasing the space available for the spindle motor results in the selection of a smaller sized spindle motor to be used in the disc drive. However, small sized spindle motors degrade spindle motor performance. Motor performance is an important requirement in small form factor drives.
Embodiments of the present invention provide solutions to these and other problems, and offer other advantages over the prior art.